Education 3700 Reflection

 LITERACY lOGIC from the HEART

1. All students can be successful.

2. The more literate a student is, the more successful the student will be.

3. Our greatest impact in our students lives can be measured by the relationships we build with students and how successful they remember feeling in our classrooms.

4. Therefore, building literacy that builds success should be our primary concern.

My job, as I see it at the alternative school is to be "irrationally crazy" about my students. (Uriel Von Effenbrenner) and help them along their path by providing a literacy rich experience.

READING THE WORLD
 Interpreting the world, understanding intentions, negotiating the complexities of the demands of the 21st century learner is my passion. I build courses with those literacies in mind. Last year we had a CTS boot camp at the beginning of the year. We did CTS courses such as Workplace Practises and Safety, Maturity and Development, Digital Citizenship, Financial Management, first Aid, Safety and Sanitation in the Kitchen and Personal Training and Development. All of these courses build literacy. The handout we received yesterday allowed me to categorize the literacy strands more cohesively.

Many of our students are ESL and reluctant readers. They score more than 3 grade levels below expectations. We have to imbed "learning how to read" in courses. I have always considered this my weakness as a teacher. I was a voracious reader and never had any difficulties with reading or negotiating literacy. I have learned by reflecting and taking this course that reading has to be practised. Whatever strategies we can imbed in our lessons will build literacy skills in our students. Practices such as think-pair-share, graphic organizers, assist ice technology, literacy rich environments, students' interests, guiding questions, choice in reading, modelling reading and discussions and activities that promote reading comprehension. I can enrich my school's environment by sharing my love and passion for reading more overtly. Literacy needs to act like a contagious virus that I intentionally spread.

Writing can be a daunting task for students who have been raised with screens. The students in my school, at-risk are far more used to being passive watchers than active participants. Writing is intimidating and exposes vulnerabilities. I give recipes for writing which are a step-by-step approach. T-3, SEXEXS in every paragraph, conclusion. (Thesis with 3 arguments, statement from thesis, explain, example and sum up in every paragraph, conclusion). This year, I want to create a student driven writing community and self-publish their work. I believe this will build success. I have done Napi Legend art projects that students researched Napi stories, wrote them, portrayed them on murals and presented them (they are on display at the Head Smashed-In Buffalo Jump). Cross-curricular, success building projects such as these build writing competencies and literacy. I will plan one of these this year as well, depending on student interest and needs. Writing literacy is intentional and success-building!

I have been working in the curriculum for quite awhile, however, I am excited about the treasures I have been directed to find on the Alberta Education web site. The implementation guide is a treasure trove of activities and ideas. I have also added to my toolkit a plethora of activities. The performance poet, Shane koyzcam is a new favorite. The Canadian Literarure presented and displayed added to my resource base! I am going to create a dross curricular unit of study for social studies and English that is literature based. History is a masterful teacher of curriculum.

The "take away" I have from this course is the one page guide! I will share this with my staff. The 1/3personal, 1/3 others/ 1/3 world is a great way to divide planning! The intentional literacy skills are going to be a focus for my teaching and assessing. Being a great citizen, GLO 5,has not been intentional as it is difficult in module, individualized learning. Now, I have skills to make this more evident. Being literate for my students is actually the goal of the school "get 'er done and graduate". We help them get 'er done. I have always wanted to become "that" teacher that is counted as one of the helpful ones, not the ones that horror stories are passed from generation to generation! But hey, that's literacy too! The oral tradition lives!

Literacy is a language that we can all learn and teach! I speak French and I love second languages. I believe using literacy language and vocabulary in our daily practice will make literacy an imbedded practice that enriches our school community.